Fox News, labeled conservative, placed and an in the magazine. The Nation, labelled liberal and all hell broke loose. the publication received 250 angry letters, emails, and phone calls as well as 50 requests for subscribtion cancellation.

"The words that they're using are outraged, shocked, confused, absolutely appalled, dismayed and dumbfounded," said Ellen Bollinger, vice president for advertising at the magazine.

Nation readers: There's this thing called separation of church and state. Have you heard of it? Well it applies to advertising too. Ever seen the phrase, "The views expressed by advertisers are not necessarily the views of the publisher"?
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While I know about the above three demographic segments, seeing them together like that makes me say, "What's the next one?" Baby Boomers span 19 years. Gex X spans 15 years. Gen Y has no official "end date" and is running on 20 years. Seems to me like we are already into Gen Z. Granted, the average age of a Gen Z'er is between 0 and 6, they don't quite have the purchasing power at this point that would interest any advertiser.

My point is that another shift is about to happen. Who will these people be? What will their media habits be? Will they know what a record is? A modem? Having to watch a TV program at a set time? No, they won't. Will we be ready for them? At this point, no. When you have television executives saying that using Tivo is stealing, I wonder if we will ever get there.

Plan ahead. Old media is dying. New media isn't here yet. This is exciting!
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Tony Pierce has a great summary of how the news spread from the event they were at when it was announced (Blogoshpere) all the way through to the mainstream press who failed miserably in picking up the news. Even explaining why Blogger is such a powerful addition to Google's news gathering efforts. The only complaint I have, is that he left me out of his list of how the news spread. I posted it 20 minutes after founder, Evan Williams, made his announcement from Blogosphere after seeing the Dan Gilmore column.

Jumping on the sponsorship bandwagon, Marshall Mathers will launch a line of clothing branded, Shady. The line will include t shirts, jeans, and sweatshirts and will launch in July. Will we see Marshall in ads promoting the line? Who knows but it will be interesting for sure. [via Brachman.com]

The line between "under the radar" cool and "isn't this cool" cool is a very thin one. Too far under the radar and any cool factor you have is pointless because no one knows about it. You are just "odd". Too many people saying "isn't this cool" leads to "that's not cool anymore". Coolness trends come and go and now it seems time to say goodbye to another one. Of course, the fact that we are even talking about it, makes it long dead for some time now.

The so-called "Hipster", loosely defined as someone who is 18 to 34 who embraces obscure bands, independent films, and used clothes, is now dead. This according to Robert Lanham, author of the 'The Hipster Handbook'. Just like its predecessor, 'The Preppy Handbook' published in 1980, Lanham , breaks down the Hipster demo into various subgroups such as "The Clubber", The Schmoozer", "The Loner", and "The Unemployed Trust Finder" then paints a picture of them..."Loners are usually very pale and thin . . . [they] choose careers in programming, video editing and other technical skills. Loners know that a little self-loathing can be charming and use this to their full advantage, saying things like, 'This is the first time in three weeks I've gone out on a weekend; I'm so lame.' "

It's obviously done with humor but makes the clear sign that the Hipster demo is dead and something new is yet to follow. As these things go, it surely exists already. And if anyone has a name for it, please let me know. I was once cool and lived "The Preppy Handbook" life (if that can even be called cool) before the book existed and embodied that whole definition. Now, unfortunately, I am not cool enough anymore to know these things before they happen.
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Blogger, the software that powers the site you are now reading has been bought by Google. It couldn't have been soon enough. While Evan Williams, Blogger's founder, has done a great job creating weblog software for the masses, the road has not been without its potholes. I hope this buyout infuses some much needed cash and development into the platform.

Blogger is weblog software that allows you to easily publish a website and to link to other bloggers. It has made for some very economically viable operations such as Gawker and Gizmodo. It will be very interesting to see how the Google/Blogger relationship transforms the blogoshpere.